This invention relates to hydrocarbon fuel compositions, and more particularly relates to water-hydrocarbon fuel mixtures and systems for combusting such mixtures.
Federal clean air legislation has targeted fossil fuel emissions. This legislation has prompted engine manufacturers and fuel providers to look for solutions to be able to continue selling their products. Refiners must look at alternative formulations and/or blends to reduce emissions. Engine designers, on the other hand, must rethink the entire combustion process and how it is conducted from beginning to end.
Combustion engine manufacturers are increasingly employing the use of tighter tolerances on piston-wall machining to reduce engine oil burning. Additionally, combustion engine manufacturers are employing higher and higher combustion zone fuel injection pressures. Such higher pressures result in better spray penetration of fuel into the combustion zone as well as finer fuel droplet sizes, and the higher pressures permit smaller orifices at the injector tips while maintaining the same mass flow rate.
With newly developed fuel injectors operating at up to 30,000 psi, the fuel droplet size is reduced but the droplet dimensions are still in the 60 .mu.m-100 .mu.m range. A fuel droplet size reduction by a factor of two would necessarily be accompanied by an increase in droplet number by a factor of eight from a mass balance perspective. This is important because many small droplets improve the microscopic homogeneity and reduce particulate matter production. However, reduction from the current 60 .mu.m-100 .mu.m droplet size at these extreme pressures is only about a factor of two over the standard 3800 psi systems.
In general, droplet size of a fluid is primarily related to the viscosity or surface tension of the fluid. Therefore, any process that reduces these properties can potentially reduce the droplet size. A chemical approach to droplet size reduction has been proposed using surfactant technology. Viscosity-reducing or surface tension-reducing additives have been proposed, but high cost and other limitations have limited their efficacy.
The addition of heat to a hydrocarbon fuel reduces its surface tension. Thus, preheating of a fuel has some appeal from both an emissions and fuel economy perspective. However, when fuels are heated to temperatures above the critical temperature of the components of the fuel, e.g., about 250.degree. C., unwanted chemical reactions such as polymerization, oxidation, rapid decomposition, and other such reactions can occur, resulting in undesirable reformulation of the fuel into higher as well as lower molecular weight compounds. The fuel's viscosity generally increases, due to these chemical reactions, at a rate that outpaces the drop in surface tension. As a result, a sticky, tarry residue can be produced. It has generally been found, therefore, that simple preheating of hydrocarbon fuels has limited use.
The addition of water to a heated fuel offers benefits, but water and hydrocarbons do not mix readily. The polar nature of water and the non-polar character of fuels favor phase separation into two unmixed pure liquids. Water does not exhibit an antibonding interaction with fuels. It simply has an overwhelmingly strong attraction for other water molecules that precludes bonding with hydrocarbon units. This phase separation property can be ameliorated by the addition of surfactants and cosurfactants, but such are generally expensive and can pose materials compatibility issues in use, among other issues.